


Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl

by psiten



Category: Tokyo Babylon
Genre: Angst and Humor, Childhood, Gen, Turning Points, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:53:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5510900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/pseuds/psiten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>The maids who'd brought their afternoon snack were laughing about how cute it was that "young master Subaru and young mistress Hokuto" were building a castle in the yard, as if this were some kind of play fort. Well, Hokuto was gonna show them that they laughed at the combined might of two seven-year-old superheroes at their peril!</p>
</blockquote><p>Hokuto doesn't take upsetting news lying down. She takes action.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cthonical (Nellie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellie/gifts).



     The maids who'd brought their afternoon snack were laughing about how cute it was that "young master Subaru and young mistress Hokuto" were building a castle in the yard, as if this were some kind of play fort. Well, Hokuto was gonna show them that they laughed at the combined might of two seven-year-old superheroes at their peril! Lessons were over for the day, if she had anything to say about it. Their divination teachers could try bringing her and Subaru back in after lunch, but they weren't gonna get far, not after what she'd heard them saying about the reading Subaru made from his star charts. Whispering in corners wasn't fooling her!

     "Time for the heir to spend his year in seclusion," her butt! No one was coming to take her brother away from her. Subaru was amazing at spells and stuff, but he was just a baby -- a whole six hours younger than her! So it was her job to protect him. He didn't need to be put in magic jail for a year! He needed his sister!

     Subaru looked up from his post at the mud pit she'd picked for the core of their fortress, frowning at the dirt on his hands. "Hokuto-chan, Grandma said it wasn't good to dig up the yard more. Is this enough dirt balls?"

     Setting a bucket helmet on her head, she ascended the lookout tree. "We need at least fifty dirt balls at every turret if we're going to hold off this siege."

     "I can only make ten before I mess up Grandma's hydrangeas," he murmured.

     "No excuses!" She pointed her sword-shaped stick at the ground outside their impenetrable castle walls. "We'll dig a moat if we have to. They won't take us alive!"

     Her baby brother counted the chairs he'd helped her carry over to make the walls. "Which ones are the turrets, Hokuto-chan?"

     " _They're all turrets._ "

     "That's... a lot of dirt balls."

     "Enough to blot out the sun," she growled, quoting the movie she'd snuck Subaru out to see last week because he clearly needed an education in how to be a badass. You could learn onmyoujutsu from books and in classrooms, but badassness had to be _experienced_.

     "Hokuto-chan..." The tree creaked behind her where Subaru hoisted himself through the branches. His mud-splattered hand covered hers on the branch she was holding for balance. "Hokuto-chan, if I need to train for a year to be the next clan head, that's what I need to do."

     "You're wrong! You don't have to go because they tell you!" She wiped a tear out of her eye before it fell. Generals didn't cry.

     "Not because they told me, Hokuto-chan. Because I have to. Please don't be mad at me."

     She pulled her hand on top so she could grip his fingers tight, hard enough to feel his fingernails digging into her skin and remind her that her brother was still here. "You want to be an animal doctor, though, like Tooru's mom at Parents' Day at school! Who do the elders think they are, telling you that you can't do what you want?! It's not fair!"

     "I'll come back, Hokuto-chan." She eased her grip, just a little. And she saw movement on the horizon. Their onmyoujutsu tutors were circling the veranda. "And you know, Grandma has time to do flower arranging, and she's the head right now. When I'm the head, I can still be an animal doctor. They can't make me not."

     "Promise you'll come back, Subaru?" Hokuto asked. "I mean, I won't be lonely, 'cause I've got lots of stuff to do, but you'll be shut up in the East Wing. You won't even go to school."

     "I promise, Hokuto-chan. Cross my heart and hope to..."

     Just as he yelled, "... Die!" Subaru crumbled a dirt ball under her collar and jumped for the ground.

     "Aaaaaaaah! Subaru!! I'll get you for that!" She had to swing down from the branches since she couldn't just jump like Subaru could, but he could still only carry away half of his dirt ball pile no matter how much of a head start he had. He leapt over the line of chairs to hide behind the far tree, flinging one of this dirt balls right at her head as soon as she peeked over to assess his position. He wasn't going to be an easy opponent (he never was), but her aim was just as good!

     Her first missile caught him in the shoulder, then he did a lob that got her knee even though she was totally hidden behind a chair back. Clearly, it was revenge time. She peeked between the chair back's slats to see when he was going to show. If she timed this just right, she'd get him square in the nose! So Hokuto wound up, and shot to her feet _exactly_ when she wanted to throw -- only to see Subaru throwing at the same time! There was no way she was going to get down fast enough!

     There was no way he was going to hide fast enough, either, though, so at least it was a tie?

     Well, at least it was almost a tie. An old lady plucked Subaru's dirt ball out of the air like it was a dumpling on a table, and turned her wrist just in time to stop Hokuto's dirt ball, too. The two balls crumbled into a pile of grains under their Grandmother's hand.

     "Hokuto-san, Subaru-san. Play time is over. You may clean up and return to your lessons."

     So it was a hopeless fight, huh? Well, heroes always fought hopeless fights, and they never ever gave up -- ever.

     "Yes, Grandmother," Subaru said. He put down his dirt balls around the tree roots, and walked right over to move the chairs back to where they'd been before.

     But she wasn't getting up out of this one! Not if Subaru had to--

     When the chair started moving under her, Hokuto grabbed the arm rests, peeking around the side. Her little brother was pulling the chair back to the side of the veranda with her still in it.

     "Subaru..."

     He hugged her tight over the arm of the chair. Of course he was going to be a good onmyouji and go back to class, and into a year of seeing nobody but tutors for training. Subaru was the best. He'd always be the best. "Thank you, Hokuto-chan," he whispered. "I had fun."

     "Don't be an idiot. I'm your sister. I'm always fun." Sniffing back the tears she definitely wasn't crying, she pulled him toward the courtyard fountain. "Let's wash up, though. You don't want to go to class with dirt on your face."

     "I don't have--"

     Hokuto smushed his cheeks. "Now you have dirt on your face."

     There was his smile. She hadn't seen it since the tutors made their decision.

     And she held his hand tight all the way to the fountain, memorizing the creases in his palm and everything, because a year was a long time. A year was, like, six hours times infinity. More than a thousand, anyway. How was she to know when she'd get to hold Subaru's hand ever again?

     But at least they had today.


End file.
